Then he saw that there was another entity in his presence confined beneath a glass dome. It looked rather like a groundhog and had seven fingers on each of its six limbs. But it was larger and hairier than the glass one he had seen at the gift store. With four of its limbs it tapped on an intricate keyboard in front of it.
"What is your name?" queried a metallic voice from a speaker on the wall.
"I'm Jerry Newton. Got no middle initial," Pembroke said in a surly voice.
"Occupation?"
"I work a lot o' trades. Fisherman, fruit picker, fightin' range fires, vineyards, car washer. Anything. You name it. Been out of work for a long time now, though. Goin' on five months. These here are hard times, no matter what they say."
"What do you think of the Chinese situation?" the voice inquired.
"Which situation's 'at?"
"Where's Seattle?"
"Seattle? State o' Washington."
And so it went for about five minutes. Then he was told he had qualified as a satisfactory surrogate for a mid-twentieth century American male, itinerant type.